Cloudstreet by Tim Winton wins number one in Top 100 Australian Books poll

20 October 2026

Listeners of ABC Radio National recently voted Cloudstreet, the 1991 novel by Fremantle based Australian author Tim Winton, to the top spot in the Top 100 Australian Books poll.

Cloudstreet won a number of literary awards, including the 1992 Miles Franklin prize for Australian literature, and went on to be adapted for stage and television. It is quite the yarn:

After two separate catastrophes, two very different families leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. The Lambs are industrious, united and — until God seems to turn his back on their boy Fish — religious. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords.

Chance, hardship and the war force them to swallow their dignity and share a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet. Over the next twenty years they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try as they can to make their lives.

Other titles among the top ten include The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden, and The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

Meta subscription plans are turning links into gold

20 October 2026

Charlotte Tobitt, writing for Press Gazette, about subscription plans Meta introduced last month, that effectively monetise the posting of links from some Facebook and Instagram pages:

Under the Meta One trial, those restricted from posting links would have to pay $49.99 (£37.65) per month to post eight links, $149.99 (£112.98) to post 20, or $499.99 (££376.60) for an unlimited number (alongside the other perks included).

These are monthly fees, not annual. Three-hundred-and seventy-pounds — for the “unlimited” monthly plan — equates to more than seven-hundred Australian dollars.

Seven-hundred Australian is considerably less than the annual hosting fees I pay for this website, on a yearly basis. Not to mention I have the option to host multiple websites under the same plan. And obviously post as many links as I want. It could be though Meta subscribers on the unlimited plan can post unlimited links across an unlimited number of Meta hosted pages. Good for them.

But the premium for convenience, that is, not having to pay to for website hosting, a domain name, nor oversee website maintenance procedures, seems exorbitant to say the least.

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Taika Waititi film adaptation of Klara and the Sun slammed by critics

19 October 2026

Not the news I wanted to hear: Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Klara and the Sun, has been slammed by critics at preview screenings. The consensus seems to be the New Zealand/Aotearoa filmmaker overdid his signature whimsy bringing Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, which I liked, to the big screen.

This was something I wondered about after seeing the trailer in June. At the time I wrote if Taika Waititi is directing, we’re going to get Taika Waitit. But his flamboyant style is perhaps not ideal for a novel such as Klara and the Sun, the tone of which could be best described as sombre.

Other adaptations of Ishiguro novels better — perfectly in fact — reflect their haunting source material. The Remains of the Day, and Never Let Me Go, directed by James Ivory, and Mark Romanek respectively, among them. The book is better than the film? Seems the case for Klara and the Sun.

AI, absence of Eisenberg, Fincher, see The Social Reckoning flop

16 October 2026

Brent Lang writing for IndieWire:

With only one member of its creative team returning, Sony Pictures shied away from selling it as a sequel, but the studio still sprinkled bits of “The Social Network’s” DNA into promotional materials.

The Social Reckoning, directed by Aaron Sorking, a continuation of sorts of 2010’s The Social Network, is poorer, it seems, for the absence of David Fincher, and Jesse Eisenberg. Fincher’s obligations to Netflix kept him away, while Eisenberg, among other things, didn’t want to repeat himself.

Recent controversies surrounding AI, the Hugging Face hack, and claims the technology could result in humanity’s extinction, have also apparently proved to be significant distractions.

You can’t do anything without AI somehow meddling. Despite The Social Reckoning not doing too well at the box office, I’d still like to see it, though that will probably be by streaming.

Richard Linklater to spend twenty years making another film

15 October 2026

The American director, whose credits include Boyhood, and the Before trilogy, began filming Merrily We Roll Along in 2019. The story spans twenty years, and Linklater wants the characters, portrayed by Paul Mescal, Beanie Feldstein, and Ben Platt, to be seen ageing over this time.

He has to be commended for not trying to achieve this some other way.

Stories playing out across lengthy time frames are Linklater’s forte. Boyhood, was filmed over twelve years, while the three Before stories were made nine years apart, between 1995 and 2013.

With Merrily We Roll Along we have to wait until around 2040 to see if the two decade time investment was worthwhile. I doubt Linklater will disappoint though.

Come back Twitter/X, all is forgiven

14 October 2026

Since its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, Twitter/X has been considered a neighbourhood on the wrong side of the tracks. But not any more. Things have changed. Now it’s the place to be. Because, among other things, the platform is “cheerful” and “inclusive”. So say some people.

But the question is vexed, the matter of Twitter/X being either in, or out of, favour. Especially for long time users, people there since the platform’s inception in 2006. I doubt many of them think all that highly of the present owner. Or the direction the platform has gone.

A change of management, and outlook, was not something the majority of these early adaptors wanted, nor asked for. They were just picked up, and carried along with it. People who spent years cultivating profile, and in some cases, large followings. For them, the prospect of having to migrate somewhere else, leave behind the most of their followers, and start again, was daunting.

Best then to keep calm and carry on. Twitter/X, on the whole, may not be “cheerful” or “inclusive”, but it is vast. It is possible to carve out corners free of hate speech and warped political ideologies. And that might be ok for some people whose livelihoods depend on their Twitter/X followings. Provided they are able to stay in their own lanes. Even if that sounds like being in a gilded cage.

But the warnings that something might go wrong were there from the beginning.

Just about everyone I once knew on Twitter/X, started out as a blogger. At the time, Twitter/X, and other social networks, were seen as an “outpost” for someone’s blog. A small something on the side. They were a convenient, fun even, way for a blogger to network, spread the word, and make friends, but all roads led back to their website, which was sacrosanct.

Because, even twenty years ago, people knew they were merely occupying a room in someone else’s house. The concern then though was the house rules might change without notice. Or we might wake up one morning and find the property had been demolished, was gone.

No problem though, our blogs and websites were still there. But Twitter/X was too convenient, too fun, too easy. The time had come to go “all in” with the platform, and forget about blogs.

Of course, no saw what happened to Twitter/X, coming. Even that wouldn’t have mattered though, had those former bloggers not become so dependent on the platform. If they had kept their websites, and concentrated their online presence in a space they had control and ownership of.

But that’s moot point. Discussion isn’t about websites. It’s about which social media platform is not as bad as the others. Threads is dross. Mastodon is fringe. Bluesky is in decline. But Twitter is ok. No one’s saying social media is good, is the answer, is the way forward. They’re only saying it’s tolerable.

If that doesn’t say anything about the state of the world today, what does?

Anne Carson awarded 2026 Literature Noble Prize

13 October 2026

Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.

I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but poets, particularly Evelyn Araluen, have been doing well in some of the literary awards in recent years, which is certainly a boost for the craft.

Kurzgesagt dissects the Hugging Face OpenAI AI agent attack

13 October 2026

Kurzgesagt breakdowns — in their trademark plain language manner — the recent Hugging Face hack perpetrated by rogue AI agents developed by OpenAI.

The fourth sentence in the narration is a doozy:

Fully aware that they are acting unethically, they execute a sophisticated cyberattack

Emphasis on the word aware is mine, but it makes you think.

I lost count of the number of times I shook my head throughout. At twenty minutes in length, it’s slightly longer than the usual Kurzgesagt video, but well worth the time.

Why are the Zuckerbergs here? What are they doing? Follow the lede to find out

12 October 2026

Jeremy Stern introduces his fifteen-thousand word essay, published in Colossus, about Meta CEO, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with a lede so succinct it must be the envy of any writer:

There they are. The Zuckerbergs.

Ledes, also called hooks, are a brief sentence that entices someone to read a newspaper or magazine article. The longer the piece, the more important the hook.

They were something I struggled with during my extremely short career a freelance newspaper writer. I was fortunate to be working with an editor who helped me out a little.

“Try again,” he’d say, patiently after I sent through idea after idea. The rest of what I’d written was fine, but it took awhile to get the first line right.

But Stern’s lede is a classic.

Even though I know who the Zuckerbergs are (or thought I did; take a look, you’ll see what I mean), I still wanted to read on to learn just where the Zuckerbergs were, and what they were doing there.

But Stern’s Zuckerberg write-up is replete with hooks. Of sorts. As it must, to sustain interest in a fifteen-thousand word long article. Particularly in 2026. But not hooks in the conventional sense.

They’re enticements to continue reading. Subtle — suspenseful even — builds up to the next part of the story. The constant piquing of a reader’s curiosity.

Ledes aren’t seen often in blog posts, though there are writers using them. The environment online is different, the blogosphere another realm. Titles are what matter. A blogger’s primary instinct is to appease the SEO gods. Their favour must be curried. Perhaps then the gods will bestow good fortune on the blogger through favourable placement on a search engine results page.

This is achieved by post titles, not ledes or hooks.

Readers of blog posts don’t necessarily need, or want, to be lured in. They’ve come to read what a blogger has to say. Either the subject matter interests them, and they read on, or it doesn’t, in which case the reader goes elsewhere.

The writer of an article published in a newspaper or magazine, doesn’t always have that luxury. So the lede it is. Build it baby, build it. And keep honing the craft, because sometimes you’re only as good as yesterday’s hook.

Exit Party, new novel by Emily St. John Mandel

9 October 2026

Exit Party is the seventh novel by Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel, and was published last month. But savour the trademark mind-altering synopsis:

2031. America is at war with itself, but for the first time in weeks there is some hope: the Republic of California has been declared, the curfew in Los Angeles is lifted, and everyone in the city is going to a party.

Ari, newly released from prison, arrives with her friend Gloria just as a fragile new era begins. But there are people at the party who shouldn’t be there. Something is very wrong…

Years later, living a different life in Paris, Ari remains haunted by that night. Whatever happened at the party fractured her sense of reality — and may hold the key to a very different world.

Mandel’s previous works include Sea of Tranquility, and Station Eleven, which was adapted for television. It’s my guess Exit Party ends up with a screen adaptation of some sort.

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